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"Das war ein Befehl!" A German Götterdammerung '44 AAR

"Das war ein Befehl!" A German Götterdammerung '44 AAR

0000 June 20th 1944
Reichstag Building

Generals and Ministers entering the Cabinet Meeting were soundly convinced that Hitler would discard, once again, each attempt at organizing a strategical withdrawal on the Eastern front. This time, they tought, it would be different.

Hitler and the others were in this large, dark hall, all around a table and a huge map portraying Europe. His left hand was trembling, but this did not disallow him from expressing his concerns about the present situation in a not really mild way.

"That was an order! I told you all every man in the East must stand against the Red scum!" Hitler slammed his right fist on the table "How dare you disagree my orders, you coward, treacherous, so-called generals! I know you just need to exit this door to backstab me once again, bunch of fools!"

"Mein Führer, we're actually inclined to say you would now agree to our new plans our Generals prepared to front the new situation in Europe. Look at this paper our Chief of Army--"

"You dare think I would even look at your pile of paper once again when we have the Americans knocking at our doorstep, the Soviet scum invading our lands we rightfully occupied, and the Allies taking Italy from the grasp of our loyal ally, all of this because of your genial plans, and you even think I will allow this foolish suicide to continue? Give me I say, oh dear coward Generals, give me a single reason to why I should follow your darn plans!"

"We all actually have a good reason, mein Führer." quietly answered Julius Ringel, soon-to-be Chief of the Army, and calmly pointed its Luger towards the head of his beloved Führer, now shattering in fear.

"What does it mean... that's treason... why would you even think of such an action...! I have always acted in the interest of the Fatherland... you are my means to reach the Endsieg... y-you wouldn't want to end this all now, would you...? Why don't you react?

"Because we all agree, mein Führer, that your elimination IS the best thing for our Fatherland, for we are no means for the reaching of the Endsieg, but the leaders; for you are no leader of this Country, but its downfall."

A surreal silence descended upon the hall when, all of a sudden, one could hear a distant sound. It was that of the Ride of the Valkyries, that was being played from a radio not far away from the hall. That gave the signal for two SS-guards to enter the hall, deprive Hitler of his consciousness, and deport him far away from the Reichstag.

"He could still prove to be useful, afterall." said Chief of Staff Heinz Guderian.

"I really hope so" intervened Julius Ringel "for I don't really know how much better it is to keep him alive instead of finishing him off now."

"Now now let's not debate about this once again" Martin Bormann, Head of Government, replied "we went over this many times and decided to make him think he would get killed, and then get him deported. I tell you this will have its uses, in the future."

Ringel said "You are right, or at least I hope. Now we have a Country to save, don't we? Let's start this meeting once again, with one man less.

"I will start" said Heinz Guderian, Chief of Staff "with depicting our Armed Forces state in relation to our situation in Europe.

"Our ground forces of the Wehrmacht seem to look good. Well, they are not. Most of them are understrenght and need an intense flow of reinforcements. The Kriegsmarine has a not really big, to keep it optimistic, surface fleet, still it can rely some potential on the 50 submarine divisions, with which we can hope to harass a bit of Allied Shipping in the Channel. The Luftwaffe is not that bad, though much of it is on the Eastern sector, and even there we can barely achieve Air superiority.

Since June 6th, we must deal with a 3 front war. I want this to become one - the East. To do this we must first focus on the newest one, France, before the Americans knock at the Reichstag's doors in a few months. Then we will deal with Italy, and then we can play with the Bear. To how we can achieve this, I know our Julius has some in-depth plans. Julius, why don't you inform us."

"Thank you. First of all, I deem it necessary to put all our reinforcements stream on our divisions in the West, and also reallocate all our Airforce in the East to the West. It is imperative that we stop the Americans and capture those divisions landed at Normandy before they expand out. We cannod however achieve this with our current state of forces present in the area, so I developed a salvage plan for the current days.

Unfortunately, our three divisions in Cherbourg have no way to get out and will be destroyed by American forces. Anyways, Yellow lines represent retreating moves, and the Red line represent our ideal front. Paris we will keep or not, this I cannot know and may become a wildcard. I will be satisfied if we can keep the Americans along the red line. While we do this, we will call all our divisions at present behind the front to bolster our defense and hopefully pull them back, or keep them on a tighter front.

Italy is the easiest front we can manage. I want all those lone divisions in Rimini and Florence, and perhaps we can even mount a successful operation there.

The Balkans need some rearrangement. While I think it is unlikely that the Allies will open a new front there, I still think that we can spare a few, understrenght divisions, in Greece to watch for any danger. Those Croatian divisions are really understrenght and, since they would be of no help in Italy, they can be some nice watchkeepers in Greece, while the other divisions scattered among the region can be transferred to the fledging Eastern theater, which I am about to analyze.

The Eastern sector is huge and I will divide it in North, Center and South. Overall, we need a strategic withdrawal along the whole line. We must buy time to resupply our forces, shorten the front line and hold the Russians in a stalemate front, if this we can achieve. Do also remember that we must avoid fighting where possible, and that I am sending all operational aircraft to the Western theater to deal with the American menace. The earlier we close that front, the earlier we can send those troops to the Eastern front and stabilize things a little. Also, I am going to reorganize the chain of command a little, as many commanders have way too many divisions under their command.

Now, on a further look:

In the North, the whole Baltics region must be evacuated. By doing this, we will avoid the risk of being encircled, we will shorten our frontline considerably, we will buy time for the Soviets to come and for our divisions to resupply. A Jelgava-Jekaplis-Wilno line should be enough, I hope.

Center. This is a mess, but I hope that this will ease things a little. We are not really reducing our frontline lenght a lot, but we desperately need to buy time. I am merely adjusting the front line to the obvious restriction the northern region will put to the central region.

South. Here, trading space for time is not really a luxury we can afford. Our allies must be protected at all costs, but still I think that we can hold the line by retreating to the Zamosc-Strij-Iasi-Ismail line. I don't know if Iasi can be held for this so much time. I request that all behind-the-lines troops be called to the new frontline to keep the Soviet menace at a halting ground.

I say that Field Marshalls von Manstein and von Rundstedt command the Eastern front, General Hausser the Western front, and myself the Italian front. That is all from me. To execute this plan, I ask that we allocate each and every drop of resource to reinforcing our troops, with maximum priority given on those of the Western front. Speer, is that something we can afford?"

"Not at that extent" replied the Armaments Minister Albert Speer "but I can optimize our precarious production situation.

As you can see, I have scrapped all the underwater metal waste and fireworks projects that were U-boote and those shiny V2 that, albeit cute, do not help our war efforts by much. I have allocated whichever available to the reinforcements sector, and even there we can only sustain almost two-thirds of daily reinforcements needed. Not that it is that bad, but I don't know if this will be enough. As for our resources pool, we can still count on fairly high reserves, though I think we'll need to arrange many trades for Oil and Rare Materials in the near future. I would now hand over to our Head of Intelligence. Ernst."

"Thanks, Albert. Our technology level is fairly high, but there are some sectors I need we must specialize in.

First of all, we need to focus on manpower growth. Then we must improve our decryption devices to help our troops' precarious odds with the enemy; Improved Electronic Computers will help us accelerate our research pace, while Turbojet Interceptor and Turbojet Close Air Support will be needed to even the odds with our enemies' airforce: if we can't get numerical superiority on air, at least we can achieve the edge of technological advancements, can't we?"

"That's very good and all, gentlemen" said Head of Government Martin Bormann "as a last measure, I will ask our specialists to direct towards a more standing army in the future. Let's now try to get this plan in motion, and let Germany live another day. Or die trying."

March - 21 to 22Cabinet Meeting - Japanese mainland invaded by US divisions - German troops under Ringel start pushing in Soviet-occupied Finland - Heeresgruppe Finland, led by Hausser, holds the line awaiting Ringel.

Notes from the Author - The World in Flames mod includes a completely different combat system, as battles take much longer, consequently dealing many more casualties, and trench-like warfare is much more likely to happen if one side does not possess convincing odds or enough airpower. Furthermore, the Challenge difficulty provides a -20% IC to the player and a similar positive bonus to the AIs, notwithstanding a small -5% combat penalty modifier.

Trust me, I had spent an entire five-minutes-five thinking of how to not break the fourth wall Then I just though "what the hell" and put that as I was so irritated I couldn't find anything veritable. I will edit that if I can find anything suitable though :P

Fernando Torres: Thanks, one of the reasons I am playing '44 and not '36 scenario is indeed because of the fact you only worked on the '36 scenario. I also want to test if your game mechanism modding is enough to steer it in a perceivable way away from the vanilla version.

EDIT: Simon-1979: Thanks, your observation has been noted. I spotted them and am proceeding to modify them.

Update coming in a few minutes... or hours. I have pressed the unpause button. Hell breaks over.

All the reallocations in the Chain of Command and division movements orders were issued. One thing of particular note was the redeployment of five divisions, belonging to the OKH Reserve, in Valenciennes, which would arrive July 3rd, provided the Americans won't be fast enough to occupy so much territory first.

Movements orders have been issued all along the Eastern Front. There was a hole in the southern region, but it didn't worry the plan's masterminders.

0100 June 20th 1944
Reichstag Building

One hour later the issuing of such orders, Chief of Army Ringel received a handful of reports. Not a single one of them were to be of any good, but at least not that bad to be outside of what the plan pre-emptively considered.

Each battle would result in utter defeat for the Wehrmacht, and thus Ringel authorized von Rundstedt a strategic withdrawal all over the line. Von Rundstedt didn't wait to listen it a second time before carrying his new orders out.

Such looked the situation, one hour after. The retreat orders saved an awful lot of trouble and lives on the Germans' part, and the Soviets only had to catch up. How and when would this strategy pay off, only time would tell. Ringel was actually more worried about another attack.

Five German division in Rennes were under attack by American forces. It is clear they wasted little time in getting the Wehrmacht few and scattered forces hard-pressed. Even more clear was the fact they had no choice but to retreat, for now.

Inner Circle, Fernando Torres - There are indeed more or less subtle references to Der Untergang.

Fernando Torres - I think the French line is one I can hold, hopefully. I am not that sure about the Soviet front, which perhaps will need some adjustments during the process, depending upon the speed by which my enemies occupy my territory.

twcAxeman, rcduggan - Thanks. Strategy is fundamental, but luck isn't that bad either. Playing against the AI is a lucky thing already.

Winner - I did not kill him as it can reserve me some fun coup de théâtre in the future, should I feel the need to. Combat system is like TRP: mainly, battles last much longer, so to make Air support more important.

Inner Circle - Thank you. It is not certain that I will survive to WC, but I am surely heading for that objective. Your question about my allies' status will be answered two updates later.

The three divisions in Cherbourg actually had the same amount of men that would occupy one single division. It would be a bad thing, if not for the fact they were about to be captured, one would be partially relieved by thinking: "at least those divisions were already badly mauled".

0500 June 20th 1944
The skies above Le Havre

"Let them know we are not dead yet" Chief of Air Force Hermann Göring had issued orders to all available planes in Normandy to chase Allied bombers. This time, the Allies would know the 1944 Luftwaffe still had some decent airforce to count on.

Perhaps not satisfied by the outcome of their previous battle, the French decided to join in. They would not know what would hit them when they entered the skies of Le Havre when Luftwaffe's interceptors were still chasing fleeing Allied bombers.

1800 June 20th 1944
One lone ship in the Western English Channel

Whoever he was, he would be awarded a medal of courage post mortem, for withstanding the full brute force of such a huge fleet, and for letting the Kriegsmarine know the whereabouts of such a massive part of the British Navy. Needless to say, his little fleet would be shattered away from the world of living beings in less than a hour.

2100 June 20th 1944
6th Armee Headquarters, Ismail, Romania

The Soviets decided it was about time to penetrate their forces into Romania. They perhaps didn't know attacking by night isn't a really good idea. They would know it the hard way, and in the meantime provide the Wehrmacht a daring plan. Field Marshall von Brauchitsch's eighteen retreating divisions would withstand twenty-one undersupplied Soviet divisions. He couldn't ask for better but lure the Soviets in a possible stalemate battle, and provide his adjacent forces a counter-attack options.

Soon after, Field Marshall von Weichs would attack the daring Soviets with his and his adjacent forces in Stryj.

Odds were not really in his favour, but he didn't want to wait the sun rising. He was confident of the fact his battered Panzer divisions would be able to mount a successful breakthrough even before the sun rose, this if the Soviets won't decide to break off their attack in Ismail and concentrate on defense. If that was to be the case, von Weichs would pull off the attack.

2100 June 20th 1944
The skies above Amiens

This time, von Waldau would not be so lucky. He encountered several Allied fighter wings to fight, and would have to fight for several hours without further reinforcements coming. Night would give him some respite, however, before Luftwaffe aircraft would come to his aid.

I admire the people who play 1944 scenario. I guess I am not used to jumping on a train which is heading towards a catastrophe

Anyway, I once managed to encircle a lot of Soviet divisions in Bessarabia. I don't know if it's possible with this mod though, because you need to quickly cut off and destroy them before they realize their mistake and counterattack.